


kissed by lady luck

by floralathena



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Car Accidents, Family Dynamics, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:24:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18726970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floralathena/pseuds/floralathena
Summary: Ok, so he's no Will Byers, but Steve thinks he can pretty definitively say at this point that he's got shit luck. Sure, he was born with a silver spoon and whatever, and he was loved by the smartest, strongest, bravest girl in the world (however briefly), and he's got a gaggle of preteens who look at him like he's Clark Kent and sometimes act like he's transformed into Superman, but still. Shit luck.It happens on a Wednesday. His third day back at school since Billy kicked his shit in so badly that Chief Hopper was willing to leave his adopted super-child at the Byers' for three hours to drive him to the ER.





	kissed by lady luck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mjolnirbreaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjolnirbreaker/gifts).



Ok, so he's no Will Byers, but Steve thinks he can pretty definitively say at this point that he's got shit luck. Sure, he was born with a silver spoon and whatever, and he was loved by the smartest, strongest, bravest girl in the world (however briefly), and he's got a gaggle of preteens who look at him like he's Clark Kent and sometimes act like he's transformed into Superman, but still. Shit luck.

It happens on a Wednesday. His third day back at school since Billy kicked his shit in so badly that Chief Hopper was willing to leave his adopted super-child at the Byers' for three hours to drive him to the ER. He had let Steve lay across the back without a seatbelt or anything and he had even bunched up a sweatshirt to put under his head, and at the time Steve had thought it meant he was dying so Hopper was cutting him some dying-man slack. Nancy, who was riding in the passenger seat because she was the only one who knew any of Steve's information, says it was because he could barely hold his own head up. He's pretty sure he was conscious for the entire trip, which is concerning seeing as he only remembers it in bits and pieces. He remembers sitting in an uncomfortable chair, slouched over on someone's shoulder, as Hopper said: “What’s your middle name, kid?”

“Elliot,” Nancy had said, as Steve mumbled “Steven.”

They’d had to wait, not because the hospital was actually all that busy, but because it was chronically short-staffed and those few staff members on duty were exceptionally lazy. In their defense, Steve didn’t look quite so bad then. Max, Lucas, and Dustin had approached him cautiously with damp washcloths, Neosporin, and fresh bandaids in offering once they were all at the Byers house and things were evidently “over.” Lucas had been wielding rubbing alcohol as well, and the kids had worked over his face and hands methodically, chatting about arcade games and something they called “bludgeoning damage” as they cleansed him of blood and Upside-Down gunk like it was normal. To them, Steve guesses, it was. Sad fuckin’ times. 

“Have you ever had a concussion before?”

“Nah,” Steve had slurred as Nancy said, “Twice in the past year.”

“Jesus,” Hopper had muttered.

He and Nancy had given different answers to “What’s your birthday?” too, but he can’t remember who got it right. All he remembers is Nancy looking incredibly, heartbreakingly upset for just one moment before collecting herself. 

It doesn’t really matter, though, because it's Wednesday and one minute he’s pulling out at the four-way stop on Jefferson Street, and the next it’s like somebody’s punched him in the gut and strangled him at the same time, and he’s spinning through somebody’s yard, and then there’s a tree. 

Someone’s laying on their horn. It smells like gas and burning rubber, and there’s something crinkle-y all over everything. He moves his arm and something like fire and electricity mixed in one shoots through his veins, so he doesn’t move his arm. Taking a deep breath makes the same thing happen in his chest, so he doesn’t do that either. His ears are ringing- they always do that, now, but it’s worse than usual- and he doesn’t see anything, and he doesn’t know if it’s just dark out or if he’s gone blind or if his eyes are just closed. He tries to open his eyes.

It works. Everything is dark and then everything is way too bright, so he screws his eyes shut again. Now he can see the light through his eyelids, and he doesn’t know how he thought it was dark outside before. It starts to go back and forth, dark and light, and somebody’s still laying on their horn, and he thinks he hears yelling. An hour goes by. Maybe it’s just a few minutes. He tries to count one-Mississippi-two-Mississippi-three but he forgets how to spell Mississippi, and is he allowed to think it if he can’t spell it? 

Something moves. The crinkle-y stuff that’s everywhere crinkles.

“Hey, kid, can you hear me? Harrington?”

Steve knows that voice. 

“Steve. Steve, if you can hear me, kid, I need you to say something.”

“Gharbler,” Steve manages to push out of his mouth.

“Oh, thank God,” he hears, and he wonders what happened. 

“Alright, kid, the EMTs are gonna be here in just a second, so I need you to just hang tight, okay? Can you tell me what happened?”

“Meerrf,” Steve replies. 

“Okay, that’s a hard one, you got me. Can you tell me your name?”

“Hell,” he says. He thinks he got this one right.

“Can you repeat that for me, kid? Your name?”

“Hell it,” he says.

“Elliot?”

“Mmmm,” Steve replies. 

“Close enough. Steve, do you know what year it is?”

“Wez day.”

“You got that right. Underestimated you there. Don’t move.”

He feels something big but gentle on his head, and then on his neck and his shoulders. The crinkle-y stuff- glass, it occurs to him finally- is crinkling again.

“Can you open your eyes for me, kid?” 

“Dowah.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Yesh.”

He hears what sounds like a sigh. Somebody is still laying on their horn. Steve hopes they’re okay. There’s another noise, something loud and annoying and like on TV.

“Okay, kid, the cavalry is here. The firemen are gonna get you out of there, and then the EMTs are gonna get you to the hospital. I’m gonna be here the whole time.”

“Hop?” Steve says, and it sounds almost clear. He’s proud of it.

“Yeah, kid?” 

“Th’ other car.”

“... Yeah. There was another car.” Steve is confused and everything is loud and people are talking and yelling and he can’t feel most of his body and the parts he can feel are burning, sparking, hot, but he knows Hopper is deliberately misinterpreting him. 

“Okay?” Steve slurs out.

“Yeah, kid. Yeah, the other car is okay.”

“Th’ orn.”

“Thorn?”

“Th’ horn.”

“Yeah, you’re on your horn right now. Don’t try to move, it’s okay.”

He thinks he hears Hopper say “You’re gonna be okay” too, but he isn’t sure. He thinks he might have imagined it. 

Somebody else starts talking to him, asking him questions, but it doesn’t seem important to answer questions anymore when there’s metal creaking and glass clinking and he thinks they’re cracking open his car like a duct-taped Christmas present. He lets her talk, whoever she is, filling his ears with disjointed words and sounds that he doesn’t want to focus on hard enough to pull together into questions.

“Steve, are you still with us?” 

It’s Hopper again.

Steve mumbles something that he hopes sounds like yes.

“Was anybody else in the car with you?”

“Nooo,” he groans. 

“Alright, kid, you’re doing great. This is Linda, can you listen to her for me?”

Steve is so tired of listening.

“Steve? Can you open your eyes?”

He probably could. It sounds hard, though, and his eyelids are too heavy to lift right now, so he doesn’t. The horn and the ringing and the sirens and the voices are loud enough now that it’s almost like hearing nothing at all, and it’s dark, and he knows it’s cold outside but he feels very warm, so he keeps his eyes closed and his head down on whatever it’s down on and he drifts.

Steve hears things. He hears an awful grinding metal sound and sirens and Hopper yelling at people and muttering things. Things start to jostle him and he’s out of his car and the fire and electricity come back and he hears a woman scream, and Hopper yelling some more, and a small, scared voice that sounds familiar, and then he’s laying down and he hears doors shut and it’s almost quiet. People are talking over him, about him, but not to him, and they’re putting something on his neck and around his head and poking at his arm and his chest and it hurts. 

Time goes wrong again. Things are bumpy and it smells clean but gross, and at some point, he stops hearing and feeling and he’s just floating somewhere, and then he’s not anywhere. 

-

The next week is rough. Hopper is the only person they’ll let into his room for the first day when he’s in post-op and his parents aren’t picking up and nobody else is family according to some jackasses in scrubs and white coats. Steve is honestly surprised and glad that Hopper even wants to be there. Hopper teaches him how to play gin rummy, Steve keeping his cards facedown in his lap and picking them up with his good hand one at a time. Hopper wins every game, and makes Steve laugh so hard that the nurses have to give them a warning about ribs and collarbones.

They move him into his own recovery room the second day and only two visitors are allowed at once, so he gets Dustin and Nancy first. Dustin says that he had to battle nearly to the death for the honor of coming in before anybody else. He looks like he’s been crying for a day straight, but he’s smiling when he climbs up on the bed and sits on Steve’s legs to show him the new comic he just got on Tuesday. Steve grins at him, hums yeses and nos and says “That’s awesome, man,” and tries not to look at Nancy. Nancy looks nice, her hair washed and light makeup on, sweater impossibly white and prim, but there’s exhaustion written in her features. She reveals that she smuggled in some decent shampoo in her purse, but she has not smuggled in cigarettes, which is good because if she had Steve would have fallen even more deeply in love with her and that’s really the last thing he needs right now. She says that she’ll bring his homework by tomorrow, which is endearing even though it should be annoying, and he thanks her even though for some reason he feels compelled to apologize.

They only get ten minutes before Hopper shows up and says that they’ve had their turn. Dustin climbs off and, afraid to hug Steve when his ribs and arm and collarbone have all been nearly shattered, awkwardly hugs his legs before leaving the room. Nancy lingers for a second. She smiles sadly and leans down, pressing a kiss to his limp, greasy hair before following Dustin outside. 

Next come Max and Lucas. Max looks physically ill at the sight of him, and she lingers near the doorway with a weak attempt at a smile. Lucas has no such reservations. He plops himself down in the chair by Steve’s bed and grabs his right hand, the one which survived the crash with just a few nicks from the glass he’d been sprayed with. He starts showing Steve dice, the kind that the kids use for their dungeon game, encouraging him to roll one around in his hand to “feel the finish,” whatever that means. Lucas talks about how they heard about the crash and biked there just in time to see Steve get loaded into the ambulance. He’s rolling dice around in his own hand, and Steve thinks that maybe it’s a comfort thing for him. Max approaches slowly, and even though he’s only known her for about two and a half weeks, he’s worried because she isn’t acting like herself.

A nurse knocks on the door and sticks her head in.

“Steve, sweetie, it’s about time to go on that walk we talked about.” She notices the kids and smiles. “Would you two like to help him up?”

Max stops moving as if she’s in slow motion.

“A walk?” she asks, sounding almost like herself.

The nurse pulls a walker into the room.

“Yeah, whippersnapper, a walk,” Steve says, slowly easing his legs off the bed and towards the right side where the kids stand. “What about it?”

“Nothing,” Lucas says quickly, as Max says “Nothing, Grandpa.”

They put their skinny arms around his midsection and let him use them as crutches, pulling himself up. It’s fairly awkward- he’s not supposed to move his right arm because of his collarbone, and the left forearm is in a cast, so he manages it mostly on willpower alone.

“I think we’re good,” he tells the nurse when she brings the walker near him. She purses her lips and raises an eyebrow, but she puts her hands up in the universal womanly gesture of “that’s none of my business” and lets him use children as a substitute. This way, if you ignore the hospital gown and the paper underwear and the no-slip socks, it almost looks like he’s just chilling with his youthful friends as they take a casual stroll through halls which reek of antiseptic. 

“Why do you have to go on walks? Your legs are fine,” Lucas says, sounding worried.

“My balance isn’t,” Steve says, “Head injuries will do that to you. Apparently, I need to practice walking now so that I won’t just trip over air.”

“Guess I’ll have to wait til summer to teach you how to skateboard, then,” Max says casually. She’s on his right side, arm clenched tightly around his midsection to compensate for the fact that his right arm is immobilized in a sling. Lucas has Steve’s left arm thrown over his narrow shoulders. 

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening.”

Lucas and Max look at each other like, oh, it’s definitely happening, and Steve kindly doesn’t say a word. They do a lap of the ward, pausing by a window so that Steve can lament the fact that nobody will bring him cigarettes and he can’t go get any himself. Steve walks slowly, unsure of himself, and tries his best to be cool about it. Max and Lucas are doing an pretty great job themselves, like moving around helps them pretend things are fine. Max starts talking about something that happened at the arcade recently and Lucas jumps in to spice up her story with unnecessary details that make Steve smile. By the time they make it back to his room, Hopper’s waiting there with Mike and Will. They both look a little uncomfortable, which is fair. Mike hated Steve’s guts until very recently, and Steve hasn’t spent more than a couple of hours in Will’s company. Still, Will perks up when Steve comes into view and Mike looks a bit less serious. Max and Lucas pass him off to Hopper, who lets him walk more or less solo to the bed (though he’s hovering pretty closely the entire time). 

Mike stands by the bed awkwardly. Will looks at the ground as he gives Steve a hand-drawn Get Well Soon card. On the outside, there’s a very nice bouquet of flowers. On the inside, there’s an incredibly detailed crayon drawing of Steve running over a Demodog in his car. Steve exclaims that it’s the coolest thing he’s ever seen, and Will tells him he doesn’t have to pretend, and Steve is so offended that he demands another one as soon as he’s out of the hospital. Will stops looking at the ground and smiles, blushing and laughing. Steve asks them how things are going. Will tells Steve that he’s been feeling better and that he’s not behind in school anymore, and Mike says of course you’re not behind you’re smarter than anyone else in class, and they get into a little not-argument because Will thinks Dustin is smartest and Mike thinks Will or Mike is smartest, and then Steve says that Lucas and Max are the only ones who are almost normal, and then Mike says it’s not about normal it’s about smart, and this goes on until Hopper knocks on the door and tells the kids that visiting hours are almost over and Joyce just got here.

The sun is going down. Steve says goodbye and Mike smiles at him before walking out, while Will goes in for a hug so gentle that Steve’s ribs don’t even ache.

“Sweetie, can you head back to the waiting room with Hopper? I’m gonna say hi to Steve and be right down.” Joyce is standing in the doorway. Will nods and walks past her.

Steve and Joyce both watch him go until he links up with Hopper down the hall. 

“How are you doing, Steve?” she asks.

“Honestly, ma’am-”

“Don’t do that,” she says, “You’ve earned Joyce privileges.” 

“Joyce-” he starts, and makes a face because it feels wrong, “Ms. Byers. Honestly?”

She gives him an encouraging nod. 

“I would kill for a smoke right now.” 

She laughs. Joyce enters the room fully, digging in her purse as she approaches. 

“Don’t tell Hop,” she says, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a cheap gas station lighter. “Come on, kiddo.”

She goes over to the window and finds the latch, leaving Steve to gingerly lift himself off the bed to follow her. It feels good, walking on his own just a few steps. He almost pitches forwards and brains himself on the side table, but he manages to catch himself and complete the trek just as Joyce manages to push the window open with an awful squeaking noise. 

“Awful habit,” she tells him as she holds one out for him, “Can you-”

“Yeah, I got it,” he says. Thankfully, the cast on his left arm left his fingers free, and that’s all he needs. It’s kind of awkward, but he takes the cigarette and puts it up to his lips. Joyce lights it for him before lighting her own. 

“How long?” she asks him.

“Have I smoked? Too long. Like, sixth grade or something.” 

“Jesus,” she says, “I wasn’t even that bad.” She gives him a little smile, like it’s an inside joke, and he huffs out a surprised laugh. 

“Well, you weren’t raised by my father,” he says wryly, “Does it sound dumb if I say that I thought if I started, we could take smoke breaks together?”

“No,” she says, looking at him as she blows out the window, “No, it doesn’t sound dumb. Depressing as all hell-”

Steve barks out a laugh, coughing a bit and leaning on the windowsill. Joyce rubs his back as his coughs subside. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says.

“God, I hope not,” she mutters. Steve thinks that it wasn’t really meant for him, but he acknowledges it anyway.

“I can’t believe, with all the shit we’ve gone through- uh, sorry, stuff-” and Joyce laughs at him, so he laughs at himself and continues, “and I’m in the hospital because some jackass blew a stop sign and drove off.”

“That’s life, sweetheart,” Joyce tells him sadly. “I hate that you kids are being subjected to it like this. It’s never what you think it should be.” 

Steve thinks he gets what she means, and he doesn’t really want to make himself sound stupid by asking for clarification, so they keep smoking in silence. The sun is setting, the sky turning a beautiful shade of pinkish orange as Steve breathes, holds, blows smoke out into the air. 

“You ever tried to quit?” he asks Joyce suddenly.

“Yeah,” she says, “A few times. For the boys. I’ve never managed more than a month or two at once.” 

Steve sighs.

“That doesn’t mean you’re doomed forever, though.” Joyce rubs his back again, and it feels so nice that he could cry. “You could always move away from Hawkins. I imagine life would become a lot less stressful.”

He laughs again. “God, if only.”

“Why don’t you?” Joyce asks.

“Move away?”

“Yeah. Go to school out of state, find a nice girl, settle down far away from here.” 

Steve frowns. “I can’t.” 

“What’s keeping you?” Joyce asks. It’s not a challenge or a test- it’s a genuine question. 

Steve has to think about it.

“Well, I don’t think I have the grades-”

“Oh, hush,” Joyce says, “That’s an excuse, not a reason.”

They smoke in silence for a bit longer as Steve considers. 

“It’s gonna happen again,” he says quietly. “I get that now. I kept trying to pretend things were normal, but Hawkins will never be normal.”

“So why don’t you plan to get the hell out of Dodge?”

“As shitty as it is, Hawkins is home. Everyone I know is here. Everybody that I- Everybody I know. And there’s gonna be a next time, you know? There’s always a next time, and if I’m not here next time, and I could have been, and something happens…” 

Steve’s mind flashes back to the kids, ready to go into the tunnels without Steve. Jonathan empty-handed, Nancy with her gun, facing a monster without Steve. Max hanging out with Lucas and being found by Billy without Steve. They might have all been fine- maybe Steve got his ass kicked for nothing, over and over again, and they all would have been fine without him. Or maybe Billy would have hurt Lucas and bruised Max’s arm hauling her home, maybe the kids would have burned themselves alive in those tunnels, maybe Nancy and Jonathan would have been left bleeding out in Joyce’s living room.

“I just… I don’t know. Maybe I’m not good for anything. But if there’s a chance that I’m good for something, that I could help you guys… I have to be around here to do it.” he says.

It sounds kind of self-absorbed, and he feels like an asshole for even saying it, but Joyce looks at him with something like affection in her eyes. Maybe respect?

They’re both down to the filter. Joyce flicks hers out the window, so Steve follows suit, feeling a little naughty as he does so. She puts a gentle hand on his head and cards her fingers through his hair.

“I’m proud of you,” she says, and pulls him down so she can kiss his cheek before turning and leaving the room.

Steve doesn’t know why he tears up when he gets back in bed. The nurses come by to give him some medication and close the window he forgot was even open. When he sleeps, he dreams of that weird little girl, except this time she’s wearing a familiar comfy-looking sweatshirt and her hair is curly and she’s looking at him like he’s something in a zoo. It’s a weird dream, and nothing else really happens, but she does smile at him before he drifts off into total blackness. 

\- - -

When Steve goes home on Saturday morning, he lies to the hospital staff and says that his parents will be home that night to look after him. They aren’t due home for another week, but he’ll be fine on his own. Hopper offers to drive him home, and he’s moderately unlikely to die in his sleep, so it’s fine. 

In the car, Hopper plays an oldies station and he sings along a little too enthusiastically to all of the songs, so Steve gets the feeling that maybe he’s just doing it to fuck with him. It’s kind of nice. Like something a dad is supposed to do.

Hopper carries some of his stuff down from his bedroom and puts it in the guest room on the first floor, then looks him in the eye and makes him swear to stay on the first floor and not try the stairs for another week. Steve agrees and Hopper messes up his hair before he leaves. 

He settles down on the couch and sleeps.

For about three hours, until the doorbell rings. 

Over the next week, Steve has somebody on his doorstep or in his house every five hours. They all claim it’s a coincidence- Dustin needs help on his homework (which is just a joke, and he actually came by to give Steve a crash course in Dungeons and Dragons), Will needs to give him a new drawing (which is extremely impressive for having been done in crayon), Hopper has a bunch of leftovers from somebody’s birthday party at the station (which Steve is pretty sure he made up because who would bring lasagne to a work party?), Nancy’s bringing him his homework (which, okay, she is, but then she stays for an hour and watches Jeopardy with him, which has nothing to do with the homework and is kind of weird if fun). Max and Lucas come by separately to for help with asking “somebody” out on a date, which is actually both the funniest and cutest thing ever. He hopes that he hasn’t doomed their relationship before it’s even started with his advice.

When Joyce comes by one day, clearly exhausted, he asks her what’s up.

“You guys don’t- I’m fine,” he says, “Why is everybody coming over?”

She smiles and pats his cheek. “Steve, you’ve gotten your head scrambled too much in too little time. Dustin did some research on head trauma and found a lot of scary things, and he wouldn’t rest until we all agreed to check in on you.”

Suddenly, he feels a bit choked up. “Oh,” he says.

“We care,” she says, bustling past him into the living room with a butter tub in her hand. “So I’m going to leave you this mac and cheese, and you’re going to promise to heat it up and let it cool before you eat it.”

He hasn’t been able to wash his hair or shower, so it’s just been washcloths at the sink and dry shampoo. All of the clothes Hopper carried down for him are sweatpants, gym shorts, and t-shirts that make him feel like a slob. All he’s eaten in the past few days is applesauce, crackers, and pills.

“Thanks,” he says, so soft that it’s almost a whisper.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” she says, putting the tub in his fridge and turning to face him. “Anything but a smoke.”

Steve’s mouth falls open. “What, did I lose my smoking privileges?”

Joyce, small and fierce and funny and loving, rolls her eyes at him. “Well, I figured I should be a good adult and not support it. If you’re pissed about a car accident getting you down, I don’t think you’ll like lung cancer.”

They share a smile, and Joyce gives him a small hug before she leaves.

“Goodnight, Steve. Call if you need anything- I mean it.” 

“I will,” he says, and he almost means it. Joyce shuts the door, and the house is empty and a little bit cold, but there’s a repurposed tub of Country Crock in the fridge and crayon drawings on the coffee table and some Polaroids of nerds playing a nerd game in their nerd basement scattered on the nightstand in the guest bedroom. It doesn’t feel lonely- just homey and safe.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is all for my lovely beautiful genius talented land mermaid friend sarah @mjolnirbreaker !! we did a fic exchange with the super fun prompt of head trauma. so. if you're like me and you get excited by the depiction of concussion side effects and coping mechanisms in fiction, head on over to her fic "pulling me out of the grave" and enjoy!
> 
> title is from "i miss you" by kacey musgraves because i'm a uwu-ass bitch. 
> 
> follow me @discosteves and sarah @bi-harrington on tumblr!


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